We need a suite of measurements of the effects of roadway planning that do not focus exclusively on throughput. Turning our streets into transportation sewers has really screwed up L.A.

As far as I am concerned, Class III bike routes do not count for anything. They stick sign up that says share the road, big deal. No one reads signs. Things like deer ahead or child at play signs, have shown to be next to completely ineffective at doing anything. Lincoln and Olympic are class 3 bike routes, and I ride them, but I rarely see others because they are scary places. So if we take out the worst of the class 3 bike routes, and we are left with even less connected system.

You would have a hard time finding a continuous route using only class I, II, or III bike lanes from almost any place in Los Angeles to another. One should be able to compose a reasonably safe route from downtown to Santa Monica for instance – or hollywood to the valley. If you are planning a trip like this, you are literally risking your life.

Additionally, it seems crazy that if I want to have a safe bike ride in los angleles, I have to get into my car and drive several miles.

best of luck

:)

4th Street Bicycle Boulevard
Live the Dream!
http://www.4sbb.com

Also, since the start of 4SBB, Alta Planning has been working on an update to the LA Bicycle Master Plan.

If you check their website here:
http://www.labikeplan.org/English/Main.html

You can download their PDF’s and see that in fact, 4th Street has been marked in the brand new category of “Bicycle Boulevard” as a top candidate for immediate implementation. You are welcome!

You can also find the route in the “Route Suggestions” PDF on that site, and visit 4sbb.com for more information in the Bicycle Library.

Also now, Councilman Tom LaBonge has organized two rides along 4th Street. Half of the road was repaved in direct response to his work on this issue, and the requests to repave the rest of the pot-hole sprinkled route are in the works.

That said, 4th Street is still an ideal cross-town route, and is in fact, very lovely. Potholes on a calm street with very few cars can be easily ridden around, as it turns out.

The conditions on that particular street make it an ideal candidate to be re-tooled as a bicycle boulevard. We can also elevate that street to the level of SYMBOL of the simple ways in which we can use the resources we already have to create the bike friendly environment we would all like to see.

Once 4th Street becomes an official bicycle boulevard, the model for the rest will be laid down. I’m looking at you 8th St, 2nd St, Lexington, Arden, Clinton, Oakwood and St. Andrews!

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Because of LA’s large grid pattern, this concept would work great in South LA., Central LA, and in the San Fernando Valley. For example residential streets that run parallel to 6th or 3rd would make excellent candidates.

In addition the transportation committee needs to provide direction and funding to the LA DoT to treat multi-modal planning seriously. The same firms that do intersection counts are capable, and would be willing to perform bicycle and pedestrian counts. The methodologies are out there for systematically integrating bicycling Level of Service into street designs. These methodologies just need the additional funding to provide the data and the the modeling. Here for example is one methodology:

Mutlti-Modal LOS Analysis for Urban Streets:

http://www.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?ID=9470

-and the accompanying user guide:

http://www.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?ID=9186

Thank you,

Marco Anderson